


He saved me

by Good_bi_Dean



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive John Winchester, Alcoholic John Winchester, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Bad Parenting, Castiel Loves Dean Winchester, Castiel Saves Dean Winchester, Castiel in the Empty (Supernatural), Character Study, Childhood Trauma, Dark, Dean Winchester Has Issues, Dean Winchester Has Self-Worth Issues, Episode Related, Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Extended Scene, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Self-Hating Dean Winchester, Self-Hatred, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:08:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28230678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Good_bi_Dean/pseuds/Good_bi_Dean
Summary: Dean grieving for Cas. Lots of character study.The prompt was an image that said "you dont think you deserve to be saved." And then "he saved me." And then someone quoted Titanic, "in all the ways that a person can be saved."This was pretty much me doing a free writing of Dean being forced to think about Cas summoning the empty, and being dragged away after saying I love You. It was originally supposed to be Sam pushing him to talk about what really happened... but somehow it morphed into this whole thing about Dean's self hatred.I decided to post this as part 1... all of Deans irrational self blame. This of course is the begining if the journey, there is more to come.Content Warning: Dean's self assessment is harsh and shines a light on some deeply painful things. So... it could be hard to read.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

Where is Cas?

Dean felt the air get sucked out of his body... Jack was asking him, "where is Cas"... where was Cas? Where is Cas? The question came to him as if under leagues and leagues of heavy ocean water... the sound waves moving slowly and warbily in his direction.

Where is Cas.

Dean instinctively looked away. His eyes still stung from the pain, the grief, the loss. His chin dropped and his eyes seemed to he seeking something behind him.

He knew that it had to he him. There was no one else who could deliver the news, because Dean himself was the only carrier of the deep dark thing that had occured. The unthinkable.

Cas-- he started.... The familiar name now felt alien on his tongue. Like cold metal from the dental office, searching your mouth for cavities and words.

Cas is gone.

Dean listened to those words and they felt like a lie. He'd seen it with his own eyes but it just couldn't be true.

Dean stared hard at the asphalt in front of him. "Cas summoned the empty. It took him. It took Billy and it took Cas. He's... gone. He saved me."

He saved me.

Those words echoed in his head. Cas-cas-cas-cas-cas... saved me- saved me- saved me- saved me...

His first encounter with the blue eyed multidimensional wavelength in the form of holy tax accountant, the angel Castiel had searched his eyes and gently asked, "what's the matter?" Before answering for him- "you don't think you deserve to be saved..."

And it was true. He'd later told Sam and Bobby, "If there is a God, why would he save me? I'm just an ordinary guy."

But it was much more than that. Dean wasn't just some ordinary guy. He was particularly unworthy, he was a failure. The people he tried to save, more often than not died. He was poison. Sammy was right to get as far away from him as possible, go to college, get a respectable job, be the man Dean could never be. Yet when Sam had done so, the sting of rejection and the echoes of abandonment had threatened to swallow him up. 

Selfishly, he gleaned his baby brother out of his life trajectory of success and hapiness and brought him down in the grime, the anguish, the filth, the blood, and the terror with him. All because he couldn't handle that agony on his own. He coukdnt bear the weight of it. So he plucked his beautiful baby brother like a flower and planted him down in the mud, just so he wouldnt have to suffer alone. 

*Misery loves company.*

A better man would have suffered alone, not dragged his only brother down with him. And the things he'd done when he was in hell.... Again, he wasn't strong enough to handle it like a man, to suffer alone. 

No... when offered the opportunity to let someone else suffer in his place, he gave in. Not right away. He had put on a show. Pretending he could last, but knowing the whole time that he would break. That sooner or later, he would chose the option that allowed him to pass his pain on to someone else. To evade the punishment that he knew he deserved, but couldn't bear to shoulder. To evade it by dishing it out to some other poor sucker.

And the shame of that. The shame of not being the man he knew he should have been. Of being so helpless. Of never, no matter how many times he relived it in his dreams, being able to save his mother from burning on a ceiling.

He never told anybody about this shame, about these thoughts. He never put them into a light airy place where he would be able to see how ridiculous it was to think that a 4 year old could do anything to stop a demon or save a grown woman from being murdered.

It didnt matter. Every time he saved an innocent person from some monster, a vamp, a werewolf, a wendigo, a vengeful spirit, a demon... every time he saved the day, he hated himself even more because he wasn't able to save *her*. The one that really mattered. And every time he failed, and the monsters won, and the victim died... it was like losing... and failing... his mom all over again.

And Sammy... he was supposed to protect Sammy... but he was also supposed to kill Sam if necessary. The fact that PROTECT SAM AT ALL COST and KILL SAM IF HE TURNS OUT TO BE EVIL were directly at opposites to each other, the fact that it was an impossible situation and there was no way to succeed at both of those tasks... those facts didnt matter and all Dean know was that he was a failure.

Dean couldn't do the job he was given. He couldn't follow the orders because whatever choice he made he would have to break one of his prime directives. But the fact that the task was impossible didn't matter. Dean was a failure. He couldn't do anything right. He wasnt good enough. He, dean winchester, was insufficient.

And then he died and went to hell and proved that fear right. He was tried, and found wanting.

Dean couldn't face his own self-assessment. He couldn't look at his own true reflection. He just drank and pushed it down, looked away, numbed himself, and pushed his negative feelings onto someone else.

And that's why he needed Sam. He couldn't be alone with himself, day after day, unable to avoid the real monster in the mirror. He needed someone else, he needed Sammy to blame when things got rough and when feelings started to overflow and erupt. He needed Sammy to absorb his pain and anger and helplessness so he didnt have to disclose them to his innermost being.

And the worst part was he knew how making Sammy carry the blame just made him even more of a disaster, even more of a failure, even more of a monster. Even less of a man.

Dean told himself that he was a hero. He saved people. He hunted things. He was a good soldier, a good son. He followed orders. He did what needed to be done.

But deep down he knew he was no hero. He knew that if God was real and knew his name, the almighty probably dispised him, just like he despised himself. Just like he deserved.

And when the Angel Castiel gazed into his soul that night, he saw *all of that* which dean had never even dared to look at his own damned self, and Dean had never felt so stripped bare in all of his life.

Maybe this Castiel was lying... Dean could only hope. The last thing he wanted was to attract the attention of Gods and Angels. The last thing he wanted was The Lord to confirm all of his worst beliefs about himself.

Faith- he couldnt afford to have faith. Dean needed doubt. He neded the obscurity of living in a godless world. If God was real... then surely he would punish Dean for his failures. If God was real, why would he have let Dean's mother die?

What had Dean done by the age of 4 that made the supreme diety hate him so much, that God would punish him by letting his mom die?

Obviosly Dean had been terribly terribly wicked to deserve such a thing.


	2. Chapter 2

As Dean grew older, he looked for clues, for hints. For confirmation of his wickedness. Of deserving to have his mother stolen from him by a demon... and of God to let her be taken, to just decide not to protect her, not to keep her with him, when he needed her.

After that day, life changed for Dean. They had lived in a house with a kitchen and bedrooms. Life was quiet and good and mom made him sandwiches and fed him pie and gave him hugs... so many hugs.

Now they lived in hotel rooms, and when dad was gone Dean picked up the slack. The people they met they always had to leave behind. The only constant was Sammy who needed to be cared for and dad, often drunk and needing care as well.

If Dean messed up, his dads anger could be terrifying. And usually after a beating or a screaming fight. dad would just crumple into drunken tears and cry for Mary. Or sometimes he'd storm out the door, leaving dean to clean up the scattered objects, broken glass, and all the rest while pushing down his tears because they just got in the way.

And always, when Dean failed to live up to his father's expectations, always were the harsh words, "Can't you think about somebody else besides yourself for once!" John had yelled at him for the first time when Dean was not even yet into double digits. Not the last time either. "You screwed up Dean! You can't screw up! You have responsibilities!"

"Stop being selfish Dean!"  
"Stop being so lazy!"  
"Dont be soft boy!"  
"We cant afford weakness son!"  
"It's your job!"  
"This is on you."  
"How could you screw this up? Cant you do anything right?"

Words like lashes... not that Dean was a stranger to the belt.

If *anything* went wrong, it was Dean's fault. And things where always going wrong. Why didnt Dean know the right thing to say, the right thing to do?

Sometimes when Dad was away for a long time on a hunting trip, and Sammy would mess up like a typical kid, spilling his drink or something careless, Dean's pain and anger would boil over and Dean would hear his dad's words spilling out of his own mouth, blasting Sammy with verbal daggers. Dean just couldn't stop himself and sometimes he felt terrible afterwords. But some times he felt so much relief and satisfaction being on the other side of those words. And he knew his brother didn't deserve it, but he just didn't know how to make it stop.

A few times Sammy cried and Dean apologized and hugged him and told him he didnt mean it and begged him-- begged him to stop crying. He'd kiss his little baby forehead and promise all sorts of guilt offerings-- try to learn how to cook something special that didn't come from can, or steal a candy bar for him when they didn't have money. He'd always tried to make it up to him, somehow.

But pretty soon, Sam stopped crying and just seemed let it all roll off him. Sam was quiet and thoughtful and seemed to have a preternatural understanding of human behavior. He looked up to Dean but at the same time he just seemed to resign himslef to Dean being Dean. He had a remarkable ability to absorb and not take things personally. Until he got pushed too hard and then he'd finally snap back. All too often, Sam made it just a little too easy for Dean to take him for granted. To not apologize. To justify being a dick. Because he was older and he was the boss and so what if he was sometimes harsh or domineering. Sammy needed toughening up just like everybody else, he would tell himself. The world was a harsh place.

He knew he was pushing Sammy away but he couldn't stand the betrayal and the rejection when Sam finally actually left for good. Left for college. When Dad said if you go dont come back, and Sam left and didnt look back, didnt even look back at *him.*

And Dean was sure that Sammy didn't want anything to do with him anymore. When he went to get Sammy from Stanford he was so sure that Sam would tell him to get lost. Or even... get dead. So he put on his cocky act. He leered at Sammy's girlfriend. At least if Sammy sent him packing he could blame it on his own behavior and not his intrinsic badness.

Sure he figured if Jess was offended, she'd stomp off in a huff, giving him a few minutes with his brother to plead his case. But it wasn't all for Jess. Dean had a way of puffing himself up around Sam, to keep him from seeing behind the act. He was never really sure it was working. But he had to try. He had to at least be able to tell himself it was working. Plausible deniability; that's all he asked for.

So Dean finally had his brother back and he just had to figure put how to keep it that way, always just a little while longer. Always letting Sammy think he would go back to normal after they found what they were looking for. After beating the next big bad. Always afraid that he would, that he'd leave again.

Dean was always fearful Sam wouod look at him one day and say, enough. And would all be over.

And then he died. He went to hell. And then somehow... this "angel of the lord" took ahold of his soul and lifted it out of perdition.

So why did dean still feel like he was in hell? He sure didnt feel like he was raised from perdition. The torture continued...And this time, the calls were coming from inside the house.

And yet slowly, Castiel became Cas, not just an angel of the lord, but a friend. And maybe... something deeper. Dean didnt even think there was a word for what Cas was to him.

What Cas had been.

Cuz now Cas was trapped in the empty. And Cas *loved* Dean. And Cas, his best friend who he would die for, had gone on to the empty knowing in his innermost being that *the one thing that would make him truly happy, he could never have*.

It's not like Dean didn't know. He just thought that they could go on living with it unspoken. He thought it would be enough. But obviosly, for Cas it hadn't been. And maybe for himself it hadnt been either. Maybe he had been fooling himself all along. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this all in one shot and definitly want to return to it to write more. I'm sorry I did leave it at a crushing point...
> 
> Working on chapter 2 now.


End file.
